I had fallen for Leah.
“You certainly don’t want to rush anything,” my mother said, completely ruining the moment of intimacy.
Her voice was a harsh, grating, and negative reality in a moment that felt huge. The moment I was staring into Leah’s eyes and thinking this could really be something.
And there was my mother, the nails on the chalkboard destroying the vibe.
“You really don’t know anything about this woman,” she continued.
As if Leah wasn’t sitting right there.
As if I were an idiot who couldn’t make my own decisions about who to spend my time with.
I thought about Leah’s response to me telling her about Rose. How sweet and understanding she had been and how easy it had been to talk to her.
Thirty years of irritation with my mother collided with the unexpected intensity of my feelings for Leah and I knew I couldn’t spend the entire weekend listening to her pick at Leah for zero reason whatsoever. I needed to shut that shit down now.
“I know everything I need to know about Leah,” I said in complete honesty. Then I turned to my mother and figuratively dropped the mic. “That’s why I asked Leah to marry me.”
Leah made a strangled sound, but I just squeezed her hand tighter in warning. My father choked on his gin. My mother frowned, giving me the evil eye.
“Excuse me?” she said. “You’re engaged to this woman? Have you lost your mind?”
I stared her down. “Yes. I’m engaged to this woman. Whose name is Leah. She’s a singer and a server and she’s going to be my wife.”
The word wife should have had me choking on my own spit. It didn’t. It rang out loud and clear and determined. I felt the force of it down to the tips of my Italian leather shoes. For the first time ever, I could envision myself taking vows to love someone forever. To love Leah. It didn’t feel awful or foreign or fucking terrifying. It felt like a goal.
Make it real. Make Leah mine.
My mother was holding her chest like she was having a heart attack and I knew I had about ten seconds before all hell broke loose.
I stood up, pulling Leah with me, who looked equally as stunned as my mother. “Let’s go get our luggage, sweetheart.”
I had just pulled one of my mother’s moves. Walk into a room with a hand grenade. Pull the pin. Wa
lk out, leaving destruction in your wake.
It felt good, I wasn’t going to lie.
Until we got outside and Leah hissed, “Are you insane? We’ve been here ten minutes and you flipped the script!”
My high from both besting my mother and realizing the true depth of my feelings for Leah deflated just a little. Leah was clearly angry. I popped open the trunk. “It’s called improv. I’m sure you’ve done it before. I had to shut my mother down or she was going to be intolerable all weekend to you. I thought she would at least attempt to behave but she was being pretentious and nasty so I threw her off. She won’t say anything the rest of the visit.”
“Give me a warning before you change anything. That’s all I asked. The one thing!” She put her hands on her cheeks. “Oh my God, my face is on fire. I’m so embarrassed.”
I smiled at her. “Embarrassed to be engaged to me?”
“We’re not engaged! We’re nothing. This isn’t funny. I’m really mad at you!”
Her words were a kick in the dick. Nothing. We were nothing. She was right and I hated it. “No, you’re not mad at me. How can you be? What difference does it make? It’s a business deal and I just renegotiated the terms. I’ll increase your rate if you want.”
I added that because her words had seriously bothered me. It was a knee-jerk childish reaction but the words were already out before I could stop them.
Her mouth dropped. Then her eyes narrowed. “Oh, really? If you can change the rules, then so can I. Watch out, Grant Caldwell the third. Your mother is right—you don’t know a thing about this woman.”
I felt the first ounce of concern. “What does that mean?”
Leah went up on tiptoes and ran her lips along my earlobe before whispering, “Never tell an angry woman she isn’t angry.” Then she bit my ear. Hard.